Govt urged to pay attention to free trade zones

The Federal Government has been urged to develop the free zones for the economy’s growth.

The Executive Secretary, African Free Zone Association (AFZA), Mr Chris Ndibe, who made the call in Abuja, said well developed free zones could generate millions of jobs for the youth.

“If free zones are adequately promoted and proper incentives given, investors will be encouraged to invest in the zones which will in turn provide more jobs for Nigerians.’’

He decried the low level of awareness in the public about free zones, adding that promotion was very important to their development.

“If Dubai, as developed as it is, still advertises the free zones; Turkey also doing same, why can’t we do same.

“I cannot remember when last I saw any advert on the Nigerian free zone on the television; I cannot remember how many times I have seen the distribution of in-house journals about free zone.

“I cannot remember how many times seminars and workshops were organised about free zones for stakeholders to know that this thing exists.

“If you don’t take promotion seriously and be ready to give incentives that can bring investors into the country, then, your guess is as good as mine.”

Ndibe said the level of investment was very low, considering that Nigeria currently had about 27 free zones in the country with only about eight being functional while all others had become moribund.

He said there were a number of zones that had existed for many years without recording a single investment because they were never advertised.

“I have always said it that, give the free zone the incentives that it requires, people will be falling on themselves to establish in this country because we already have power distribution challenge.

“If you establish free zone that is power efficient, water efficient with all the state-of-art facilities in place and importation of raw materials and operational machinery tax-free, people will cash in.

“This is because the return on investment in this country is very high but if they have the backing of government in what they are doing, the sky is the starting point,” he said.

According to Ndibe, a lot of investors come to Nigeria to invest, but they leave because they are not encouraged by what they see.

He said the free zones in Dubai were not better than those in Calabar or all others in the country.

“Yet, people invest heavily in them.’’

Ndibe urged the Federal Government to make adequate budgetary provision for the training and retraining of officers to take the free zones to the next level.

He called for encouragement and assistance of the General Electric (GE) which had invested in the Calabar free zone last year.